My thanks to Broadland Memories for spotting this one!
Category: Barges and wherries
Barges and wherries and other working boats originally for carrying cargoes
Lower Halstow villagers to welcome the sailing barge Westmoreland’s restoration
The parish council of North Kent’s Lower Halstow have voted to allow the sailing barge Westmoreland to be restored at the village’s quay – the same spot where the SB Edith May was recently brought back to life, and where she still moors much of the time.
The news comes from the Thames Sailing Barge Westmoreland Facebook page, which reports that the parish’s representatives voted to offer the brick-carrying vessel and famous racer a berth for the next 25 years, provided it is successful with our Heritage Lottery Fund bid.
The Westmoreland is closely associated with Lower Halstow – she was built at nearby Conyer, and carried bricks from the village’s brickworks for many years.
Spider T draws crowds at the West Stockwith rally
The photo above taken by Humber Keel and Sloop Preservation Society luminary Dave Everatt shows Humber sloop Spider T visiting Stockwith for the West Stockwith rally, which is jointly organised by the West Stockwith Yacht Club, the Canal River Trust and the Chesterfield Canal Trust.
After all the troubles the weather and flooding has brought along the banks of the Trent in North Lincolnshire, it’s good to hear that the Spider and her crew led by skipper Mal Nicholson have been able to get out and enjoy themselves – Mal, who makes his living refurbishing and maintaining classic cars is still working getting his workshops back in order following floods caused by the big East Coast storm surge of a few weeks ago.
So it must have been especially gratifying to sail to West Stockwith, where the Spider and received as many as 2000 visitors over the weekend.
I gather that a nice came when 82-year old Frank Major was steering the Spider along the river as a guest crew member. At the age of 10, Frank was mate to his barge skipper dad, and was later a skipper himself running barges around the estuary and all her tributaries.
Someone asked Frank if he was ok, to which he replied with a big grin: ‘Aye lad I’m ‘ome again.’